


Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

by authoressjean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Love, Dean Winchester is Protective of Sam Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Episode Fix-It: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Sam Winchester is protective of Dean Winchester, Season/Series 15, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Spoilers for Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, hinted Dean Winchester/Castiel - Freeform, up to you how to read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoressjean/pseuds/authoressjean
Summary: AU to S15x19: Inherit the Earth.He felt great. Better than great. Which was why, as soon as he woke up, he immediately got dressed and packed his bag.The bunker feels a little too empty to both Winchesters. A long drive to anywhere can only help heal the lingering grief and hurt.Then an all-mighty friend comes to say her own goodbyes to Dean.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, hinted Dean Winchester/Castiel, hinted Sam Winchester/Eileen Leahy
Comments: 20
Kudos: 67





	Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

**Author's Note:**

> Matthew 5:4 - Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
> 
> Having now seen the series finale, I have a lot of feelings about it. I loved it. I hated it. It was the best ending with what COVID did to us. I still would've changed a bucket of things. But we did get closure.
> 
> Now it's time for the fanfic authors to step in and provide the relief.

It wasn’t a bad thing, being out from everything. In fact, it felt downright…good. Free. They were finally _free_.

The very first thing they did was go home and sleep. The bunker was definitely their home, and for the first time in a long time, it was just them. No archangels, no Nephilim, no demons or witches. Just…

Just two brothers with a lot of mileage behind them. And a lot of miles still ahead of them, if Dean had anything to say about it.

Sleep felt like a luxury he’d been denied his whole life. He crashed and crashed hard. Nothing disturbed him. He felt great. Better than great.

Which was why, as soon as he woke up and the high of Chuck being gone really started fading, he immediately got dressed and packed his bag. The bunker was home, sure, and it was great. He loved the bunker.

It just wasn’t where he needed to be. Or even really wanted to be.

As soon as he came out of his room, he almost ran into Sam. “Woah, easy,” he said, and then his eyes caught the bag in Sam’s hand.

Sam cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t want to be here, because I do. I just—”

“Oh hell yes,” Dean said, and relief exploded across Sam’s face.

They grabbed bags full of weapons, because there were always things to hunt (probably, Jack brought it all back, so the likelihood of monsters still roaming was a thing) and then Sam headed for the reference room. “Want to help me with a few of the books? …Dean?”

Dean swallowed hard. “Uh. Nah, you, uh. You grab what you want. I’m gonna go get the cooler set up.”

_You’ve changed me, Dean._

No, not yet, not yet. He couldn’t deal with that yet. Not with Sam looking at him with growing understanding in his eyes. He turned and fled, the empty room mocking him with the person who was no longer there.

Only when he got to the kitchen did he realize that his breaths were coming in small gasps, his vision blurry. Had Castiel been able to see him, at the end, through his own tears? Had he understood Dean’s face, his emotions? Because all Dean had felt was a blur.

_You’ve changed me, Dean._

“Son of a bitch,” Dean managed to choke out. He pounded his hand on the counter and fought to get some form of equilibrium back. Anything, something.

Because Castiel was gone. Castiel was _gone_.

It’d been so easy to ride the high of having won. Having finally gotten somewhere, having been _free_. And Jack had put everyone back.

…and Castiel wasn’t there.

Of all the people that should’ve, could’ve, brought Castiel back, it would’ve been Jack. Jack loved Castiel, adored Castiel. He would’ve made it right if he could’ve.

So why hadn’t he?

Unless he couldn’t.

Footsteps in the hall brought Dean back to himself to where he stood, leaning against the counter, breathing heavily. Sam was deliberately stepping loud to give him time to pull himself back together and he appreciated it, he did, really. But it wasn’t really going to help.

Slowly Sam stepped into the kitchen. Dean began to say something, then just couldn’t. The rush of grief was barreling through him and if he said anything, did anything, he was going to lose it again.

Sam took one good look at him and stepped around him. Two beers came out of the fridge, and only then did Sam say anything. “Before we go. C’mon.”

Dean took a deep breath and nodded. Yeah. He could do with a beer or six.

* * *

Getting back in the car felt good. He didn’t even mind the people they passed because they were back, and Chuck hadn’t won. Somewhere out there was Chuck, just another person among many, but Dean didn’t really care. He figured it wasn’t his job to worry about that anymore.

Only when night fell did he realize that they’d been driving east. The rain started not long after that and he decided they were done for the night. He wasn’t going to survive years of Chuck’s machinations only to buy it by crashing the Impala on a wet, dark road. “Screw it,” he said, and aimed them for the next exit.

They got a room with two queens and Dean finally felt himself settle. This…this was good. This was normal, a normalcy they hadn’t had in far too long. He could do this.

Beside him, Sam sat on his bed, staring at nothing. His phone kept twirling in his fingers, swinging back and forth, and Dean pursed his lips. “You gonna call her?”

Sam jumped. “What?”

“I said, are you gonna call her?”

“Call who?”

Dean glared at him. “C’mon, Sam. Eileen. She’s back, right? She has to be. They’re all back, now.” Which reminded him to call Charlie, make sure that her girl had made it back, too.

It was amusing, at least, to see that Sam’s bitchfaces hadn’t been some contrived idea of Chuck’s. They were still very much a part of Sam. “I don’t want to push her,” Sam finally said.

Dean rolled his eyes so hard it actually hurt. “Maybe she’d like to know that you’re alive? Maybe?”

Sam hesitated, but it was all Dean needed. “Look, I’m gonna go grab some grub. Do a video call with her and I’ll be back.” If it took him a while to find some food, well, it was dark and rainy out.

The small smile he got from Sam was worth it. He reached over and messed up the kid’s hair, just to hear him squawk, then grabbed his coat and headed out the door.

The rain wasn’t so much heavily falling as much as it was drizzling when he stepped outside. There was enough of a chill in the air that he finished pulling on his coat. His car still had steam coming off of the hood, but there was a diner just next door. It meant a run through the rain, but it might feel good.

_Why does this feel like a goodbye?_

_Because it is. I love you._

Dean shut his eyes tight and lurched a little. He’d felt helpless to do anything, frozen in place, unable to quantify what the moment had actually been. Then Castiel had shoved him aside and the Empty had been there, and within seconds Castiel had been gone.

His best friend, the guy who’d been there for him for so long, the guy he’d—

And that was ultimately what hurt the most. Because he knew what Castiel meant to him, had even prayed as much in Purgatory. He just hoped like hell that Castiel had remembered that before the Empty had taken him.

He forced himself to turn back, just to glance inside the window around the edge of the curtain. He could see Sam’s face, lit up by a screen, and he looked hesitant, so damn uncertain of himself. Guess that hadn’t been a Chuck thing, either. God, the crap that Chuck had dumped on them both over the years just made him sick.

Sam said something, signing with his free hand near his face, and then broke out into a massive smile. Dean took a deep breath and let it out. Good. He hadn’t known that Sam knew how to smile anymore.

Time to actually get food. He turned back around and froze.

There, standing in the middle of the parking lot, was Amara.

She wasn’t dressed in a power suit anymore. No, she had a black jacket on with gray pants, and underneath her jacket was a bright white shirt. She looked comfortable, standing there with a small smile on her face.

There was also the very pointed fact that she wasn’t getting wet.

“You know, people might start asking questions if they see you all dry,” Dean called from underneath the overhang. “Might want to tone down the all-mighty thing.”

Amara grinned. “Now where would be the fun in that?”

“Where’s Jack?”

“He’s here,” she said simply. “We’re where we need to be when we need to be there, but this was…my request, you could say. I wanted to come say goodbye to you. And to maybe get a thank you.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Thank you?”

“You think that Chuck just, what, expended all of his energy fighting you two? He had more than enough to smite Jack, even with as powerful as Jack was before he drained Chuck dry.”

It took only a second, and Dean’s eyes widened. “Wait, so you-?”

“I did,” Amara said. “I wanted him to do the right thing. I wanted him to come back from the edge. And he didn’t. So I made the decision for him.”

“So you saved the world,” Dean said, feeling a little stunned. “That, uh, definitely deserves a thanks.” He hadn’t exactly considered Chuck not being able to snap his way out of the predicament he’d found, but it was nice to know that Amara had come through, in the end.

Amara crossed her arms. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t come up with the plan, I didn’t have the faith in someone else to do that. You did that, you and Sam. And, ultimately, you had faith in me for no other reason than because you wanted me to do the right thing.” Her head tilted to the side, and she smiled. “So I put Chuck on pause. You and Sam, you saved the world. The universe. And you did it with love for each other.”

Her smile faded a little. “Love that I suppose I wanted for myself and Chuck. I didn’t get that.” She shook herself after a moment. “Things with Jack are interesting. He’s _very_ different than Chuck.”

“Uh, yeah, he is,” Dean said, and he couldn’t help the smile at the thought of the kid. “Tell him I said hi, will you?”

“I will.”

She stood, waiting in the rain. When she didn’t move or go anywhere, Dean couldn’t help but ask, “So…what else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“Is everything, y’know. Back to factory settings?”

“If you mean all the humans have been returned to the world, then yes. Including your family.”

That took one thing off the to-do list, he supposed. “What about the other worlds? There’s another Dean and Sam running around in Brazil, I think.”

Amara shook her head. “We’re working on it. It took some time to demolish them all. Jack’s got some nice ideas rolling, and I think they’ll work out nicely. We’re off to talk with Rowena, after we finish with Heaven.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Not happy with it?”

“Jack’s got very firm ideas on what each place should be,” Amara said with a fond smile. “I think, when your time comes, you’ll like what it looks likes.”

“Uh…not any time soon, though, right?” Dean said with a forced laugh.

Amara’s lips turned up in a smile that wasn’t completely reassuring. “We’re not interfering. What happens next is completely up to you two. But…” Her smile went warm and almost sweet. “I think you’ll be all right.”

It felt like a blessing, of a sort. It gave him hope. “So this is goodbye,” Dean said.

She came closer to where he stood, and the rain seemed to part for her. “It is, yes. And to tell you that I was wrong, before. About your mother.”

Dean shook his head before she could continue, hands up to ward her off. “No, you were right. I did need that. Her. I needed to tell her things I’d been keeping to myself for a long time. I needed to face a few things. And…I needed to know her as a person. So thank you.”

“But she wasn’t what you really needed,” Amara insisted. “You didn’t need someone who was going to fan the flames of the anger you had. She just showed how clearly unjust Chuck had been with you. No, you needed people who could show you how good you were, even _with_ the unjust nature of how things happened.”

She nodded towards the room behind Dean. “You needed Sam. The little brother who has always truly been there for you, who won’t give up on you no matter what. The one who sees you as the hero that you are, and yet also sees all the darker spots, too. They match his own. You both need each other. That’s what you needed most of all.”

That, Dean could get behind. “Then thank you for stopping Chuck so I could keep Sam. Because I’m pretty sure we were done, about to be wiped off the map, not even tossed into the Empty.” He forced his next breath out.

Amara just smiled enigmatically. “That’s still not what the thank you is for.”

“Amara, look—”

“I said _people_ , not _person_ ,” she said, and then she vanished. The rain kept coming down like she’d never been there, not even a dry spot on the pavement, just the dark parking lot with a few lampposts around the edges.

It was why it took a minute to focus on the person who’d been standing far behind her, barely lit under a lamp. The trench coat was soaked in and dark, and his hair was plastered to his head.

Dean froze. Their eyes met.

Without hesitation Dean barreled out into the rain. This wasn’t Lucifer, this wasn’t a mirage, this wasn’t a dream or a nightmare, this was—

Cold, clammy skin beneath his own. Damp clothes that were getting further soaked the longer they stood there. Dark hair and bright eyes and a small smile that Dean had missed so damn much. He wrapped his hands around Castiel’s face, cradling it. “You’re here,” he whispered.

Castiel nodded, still smiling. “I am,” and his voice was the same, even though it trembled a little from the cold. “Though I’d prefer to be inside.”

Dean sputtered out a laugh, then another, and then all he could do was press his forehead against Castiel’s. It was just as cold and wet as the rest of him, but it felt like Heaven.

“Dean!”  
Dean turned to where Sam stood in the doorway on the other side of the parking lot. “What’s wrong?” Sam called, frowning. “I saw you take off—” And then he stared, mouth dropping open.

Even as Sam began to run towards them, Dean turned back to Castiel. “You didn’t give me time to say anything,” he whispered. “You didn’t—”

“Because I didn’t need you to,” Castiel told him. “I’d heard you already, in Purgatory. It was my turn.”

Dean just pulled him into a massive hug. There was a heartbeat doing a _thud-thud-thud_ against his hand and oh, _oh_. No wonder Castiel was cold.

Two massive arms suddenly pulled him and Castiel into another embrace, and they stood there like three idiots, hugging in the rain. Castiel finally shivered, violently, and Dean started tugging him to the door. “Are you cold?” Sam asked incredulously. “Wait, are you—”

“Not going back to the Empty,” Castiel said with chattering teeth. “Jack made sure of that. The Empty doesn’t take humans.”

Dean closed his eyes because of course Jack had come through. Of course he had. _Sorry I doubted you, kiddo,_ he sent up, and then an additional, _Thanks, Amara,_ because she’d been right. This one had been worthy of a thank you.

They got inside and Sam immediately set off to get towels out of the bathroom. “How about a shower?” Dean offered. “It’ll warm you up.”

Castiel gave him a look. “I was under the impression I got a drink first before you hit that step. And I could do with one.”

Dean stared at him before throwing his head back and laughing. “Pretty sure we get to set the rules,” he said when his laughing had subsided. He still had no clue what the hell it really meant, what they’d be.

But he knew without a doubt that Amara had been right. Sam had been what he needed, that unconditional love through his worst moments. The person who would stand by him, fight with him, and fight _for_ him.

But Sam wasn’t the only one who gave him that.

He loved them both. And he was going to spend the next however many years he had proving that he could be the man they both thought he was.

With a grin he nudged Castiel to the bathroom, where Sam was waiting, shower already running. Screw going out: he’d call in for delivery. Because he wasn’t going anywhere, not when he had the two most important people in the world there with him.

_Take care of them,_ Jack seemed to whisper in the air, and Dean nodded.

_I will._


End file.
